Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Announces $0.17 Quarterly Dividend

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 27th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of 0.17 per share by the electronics maker on Thursday, May 1st. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.25%.

Acuity Brands has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.9% per year over the last three years. Acuity Brands has a dividend payout ratio of 3.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Acuity Brands to earn $17.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.68 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.9%.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI stock opened at $268.39 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $303.24 and a 200 day moving average price of $303.57. The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $8.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.76, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on AYI. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. Finally, Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $339.80.

About Acuity Brands

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.